


Change Everything (or Nothing)

by Abbie



Series: The AU AU [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animated GIFs, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Meta Fic, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Undecided Relationship(s), sort of, unlikely partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 20:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4277367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When, in the summer after Slade's siege on Starling City, Team Arrow faces off with someone trying to create a time travel device, Felicity is mistakenly thrown back to the spring of 2013 and discovered by Tommy Merlyn, who she convinces to help hide her from her past counterpart and team. She must then try to find a way home to 2014 without disrupting the past—or throw away the future she knows to try and stop what she and Oliver and Diggle failed the first time around...</p><p>—</p><p>This post is a dumping of meta-fic posting on Tumblr for the necessity of setting up the drabbles that follow in this AU. Please forgive the formatting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change Everything (or Nothing)

**Author's Note:**

> For any who don't know, I'm absentlyabbie on Tumblr, where for nearly a year I've been feeding what I've called The AU AU and writing drabbles based on the meta fic in the original posts about the AU. I have had multiple requests to move the AU to AO3 for ease in following, and after much deliberation about how on earth to deal with the original, entirely necessary meta posts—a format which does not easily translate to AO3—without just going back and writing the whole thing from the ground up. In the end, rather than just adding the links to the Tumblr posts to each drabble, I decided to do a dump-post to start the series off on AO3.
> 
> So please forgive the formatting and incredibly lazy thought-mess that sets all of this up, and know that the drabbles that follow in the series are written in the traditional narrative format and are therefore much easier to follow. :)
> 
> There will be line breaks between my own posting and someone else reblogging with a question or comment.

So how about I’m having a fucking time-travel fuckery fic idea.

Like, sometime post season 2 (maybe before 3), Team Arrow gets into a big bad fight with somebody with a time travel device?

And they find them at the foundry, somehow, so the battle gets fraught and awful there, and at some point while Felicity’s in the parking lot outside of Verdant trying to find cover, she gets blasted–back in  _tiiiiiiiiime_ ~ *spooky hand motions*

Thing is, she lands in the alley attached to the parking lot, by the employee door. Like, lands because that fucking thing was a  _blast_ , it threw her some twenty feet and she hits the ground hard and rolls into the side of the dumpster.

She’s winded, but cold, and horribly dizzy and disoriented, and she wheezes “Ow.” And then realizes  _she’s naked_.

Naked and her eyeglasses are gone, so half-blind.

But everything’s  _quiet_. Like, normal street traffic at 2am quiet. And Felicity’s naked in the alley at Verdant and unless her fuzzy vision betrays her, the parking lot is _empty_. No Oliver, Diggle, or Roy desperately fighting their adversary and his muscle.

And then Felicity looks at the ground and realizes she’s kneeling on a newspaper, dirty and damp (and god she’s trying really hard not to think about  _being naked on the ground by the dumpster in the alley at Verdant_ ).

And as she’s squinting at the date, suddenly the employee door opens with a clatter, and Felicity swallows a shriek, snatching up the newspaper to cover herself as she scoots to crouch around the corner of the dumpster.

The person exiting into the alley is Tommy Merlyn, hefting the last bag of trash from the bar for the night. He heard Felicity’s yelp, and homeless people have been know to dumpsterdive before at Verdant, so he hollers, “Hey, whoever’s in there, get out of there now and I won’t call the cops!”

Felicity shrinks back further by the dumpster, panicking because a)  _naked_ , b) the paper said  _2013_ , and c)  _Tommy is dead_.

Tommy sets the trash bag down at the sound of Felicity moving by the trailer, and with his cell phone in one hand he edged towards the far side of the dumpster, peering into the shadows. “C'mon,  come out of there. I’m not gonna hurt you, but you can’t stay here.”

He gets closer, lights up his phone screen to use as a flash light–and blinks in confusion and recognition. “Wha–how–?  _Felicity_?”

She’s staring at him like she’s seeing a ghost, and he runs his eyes over her, just realizing that but for the newspaper, she’s  _naked_.

“Oh my god.” He assumes the worst. He instantly shrugs out of his suit jacket, averting his eyes and holding it out to her from arm’s length. “Felicity, are you–who did–are you  _hurt_?”

She reaches out and snatches the suit jacket, quickly shrugging into it and thankful she’s small enough it covers all the necessary bits when buttoned and held together at the lapels. She slowly stands, still speechless because  _Tommy Merlyn_ , and Tommy finally looks at her again, searching her over brusquely for blood and obvious injury (she’s got a few bloody scrapes from her roll across the pavement.)

“Do you want me to call the cops?” He asks carefully, then, painfully meeting her eyes. “Or… Oliver? Is this something I should call Oliver about?”

And it hits Felicity very suddenly, the things her brain has been slowly piecing together through the disorientation and disbelief–she’s somehow gone back over a year in time, Tommy is alive and still working at Verdant, which means the Undertaking hasn’t happened yet. But he also knows who she is, so it’s after they’ve met, and apparently both after Oliver saved Malcolm’s life and before Tommy quit the club.

And every scifi movie Felicity has ever seen tells her she needs to try and make as little impact as possible, and that it’s also a really, really bad idea to meet her past-timeline self.

So she steps carefully forward–wincing because of  _course_  her bare foot finds a shard of broken glass right then–and lifts her one free hand to Tommy, a gesture that is pleading and desperate. “I’m about to sound really crazy, but you can’t call _anyone_. Oh my god, I can’t even  _be here_ , this is insane!” He stares at her like she’s growing a second head, and she runs her hand over her tangled hair–which Tommy’s tracking, confused gaze seems to be noting is longer and straighter than matches up with his memory. “I know this sounds like something out of a comic book, Tommy, but for me, it was late 2014 fifteen minutes ago and I absolutely _cannot_  run into Oliver or Diggle or–or most of all,  _me_.”

“You’re from the future,” he slowly drawls, not quite believing, but not quite dismissing, either. “And you’re naked because…?”

She scowls. “I don’t know! I’ve never done this before and my trial run at time travel wasn’t exactly voluntary, but I assure you I was fully clothed before I got tossed across the parking lot by a–by some sort of  _time travel laser beam!_ ”

Tommy decides, right then, to treat her like a head trauma victim–who  _may or may not_  be not lying about being from the future. So, for now, priorities are first aid, with added criteria of not involving authorities or any of the only friends he knows she has. “Come on,” he sighs. “Let me get you out of here.”

She stares at him a second, not sure if she should trust this, if he believes her. “Somewhere I can get clothes?”

He laughs. “Definitely one of the first orders of business.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t go home, Tommy. I’m already there, if I’m not downstairs right now.”

He narrows his eyes. “That’s actually a perfect way to test just how insane the world has gotten since I discovered my best friend murders people in some kind of crusade.” He flips his phone around and taps on it for a second. “There. I just texted to ask if you were still downstairs so I could lock up.”

They wait in tense silence for about thirty seconds before Tommy’s phone pings. He blinks at the message on his screen, then rubs a hand over his mouth. “Huh. Apparently you already went home.”

Felicity steps forward again. “Tommy, you  _can’t_  take me to my house, I don’t know the rules, but all the scifi I’ve ever seen says me running into  _me_  is a bad idea.”

He still doesn’t look totally convinced, but he seems to believe her more than he did. After a long sigh, he says, “Come with me, then.”

She hesitates. “But… you live with Laurel?”

It’s an actual question. She can’t entirely remember if Tommy and Laurel broken up  _before_  or  _after_  Tommy quit Verdant. It all happened in pretty quick order, so she’s probably somewhere right in the middle of the unraveling disaster of Oliver, Laurel, and Tommy’s love triangle of secrets, betrayal, and lies.

Tommy smirks wryly, a touch bitterly. “Oliver’s kind of a gossip, huh?” She keeps her mouth shut, not wanting to reveal that most of Oliver’s “gossip” was handed out in pieces and purges after Tommy’s funeral. “Mostly, yeah. But I still have a place, and I do occasionally crash there. You can stay there tonight, until we sort out whatever the  _hell_  is going on here.”

Felicity sighs, a knot of anxiety and uncertainty in her gut, and nods shortly. “Okay.”

And she gets in Tommy’s car–he leaves her the key so she can keep it locked until he gets back–he locks up at the club, and then he drives her to his currently-underused apartment.

* * *

[andyouweremine](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/) replied to your post: [So how about I’m having a fucking time…](http://absentlyabbie.tumblr.com/post/101031826843/so-how-about-im-having-a-fucking-time-travel)

> WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS WONDERFULLY HORRIBLE THING?

* * *

That’s the only explanation that makes sense, because otherwise it’s masochism. Because if I were to do this thing, it’d be HUGE AND STUPID, and I’d have to rewatch a good chunk of season one and also maybe season two.

* * *

 

[ohemgeeitscoley](http://tmblr.co/mpB3Qhq81mrHSXfZ_h3XK4g) replied to your post: [So how about I’m having a fucking time…](http://absentlyabbie.tumblr.com/post/101031826843/so-how-about-im-having-a-fucking-time-travel)

> Waits patiently for more.

* * *

 

BUT FOR REAL, WIFEY.

Because of course he takes her to his apartment and he like awkwardly introduces her to his woefully understocked kitchen and points out the bathroom and linen closet and then waaaay awkwardly gives her some money for takeout (because the moldy package of strawberries and the carton of expire milk and the half-empty case of beers is a fucking disgrace and he knows it) and then he makes really really sure she’s okay (they’re not friends, not really; they know each other. They have Oliver in common. If pressed, they’d say vague bu favorable things of each other and yes they have each other as phone contacts but it’s mostly for utilitarian purposes) before edging out the door because Laurel was expecting him.

Only Laurel can tell he’s super agitated and he tries to explain that an “employee” at the club got in a little trouble and was minorly hurt, and he’s trying to help, but he left them alone and he’s not sure he should have, blah blah, and Laurel being the really cool person she is (and also stuffing down that old fear that these might be excuses for her boyfriend to step out on her) tells him to go back and help his friend (she uses the word “friend”; Tommy says employee, but he seems more invested than just an employer, and she wants to be encouraging of him actually making non-Oliver friends.) Says they’ll see each other tomorrow.

So he goes back to his apartment (and is almost whacked in the face with a lamp first thing through the door, because Felicity has wound herself into extreme paranoia) and discovers she has found his forgotten home laptop and has it doing things he was unaware it was capable of doing.

(She goes on a rant about how frustrating it is to not have access to her own systems and apps, because hacking into her own network would catch her earlier self’s attention and they leave the same footprints and that would be REALLY BAD.)

And Tommy ends up sitting in his armchair helping her eat the Chinese she ordered while she rambles distractedly at him about paradoxes and timeline divergences and major temporal events and shit he has  _no clue_  about, because his background in superhero comics was over a decade ago, thanks.

But the more she talks and low-key panics about all the things she can’t do and doesn’t know and doesn’t have access to (and the way she keeps stopping herself from mentioning things or people or events and staring at him helplessly) actually does a lot more to convince him she really is a future version of Felicity Smoak.

And so the inevitable question comes: “In 2014, are we friends?”

And for just a second she looks  _heartbroken_. And then she flushes, looks away, and mutters, “Not exactly. I can’t say anymore, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I might change by accident.”

And Tommy is staring at her, for half raised and forgotten, because for that moment she had looked _devastated_. And they’re not friends right now. They’re acquaintances, though he gets the feeling they  _could_  be friends if they tried at it. He thinks he likes this adorable, quirky girl.

But why would she looks so broken up over him just asking if they were friends? Do they become friends, and then for some reason turn out to hate each other? Does one of them do something unforgivable?

it’s a really uncomfortable line of thinking, so he drops it, completely.

(She does look absurdly adorable drowning in a a pair of his basketball shorts and sweatshirts though.)

So he asks her what he can do to help.

And she just stares at him, now herself aching at the thought that  _really_  could have been friends, and never had the chance, and she’s practically a stranger and maybe crazy, for all he knows, and he’s offering to help her like it’s nothing. And she knows, she _knows_  he’s going to die.

That Tommy Merlyn’s time is running out.

And this is the realization that starts the whole fucked up mess down a slippery slope.

Because over the next week Tommy helps Felicity get situated, practically treating his apartment like she’s welcome to use it as a hotel room. (He still mostly stays with Laurel, but he pops by a lot, brings food, toiletries, etc. She tries not to go out much, for fear of someone noticing that Felicity Smoak is in two places at once.) At one point he helps her do an after-dark run on her own townhome when past-Felicity is know to be in the foundry, so Felicity can break in and get some of her own things—some clothes past-her won’t notice are missing, a little stash of emergency cash, some extra toiletries, an extra pair of glasses.

And every time Tommy’s around, Felicity ignores when he can’t resist asking questions about the future, and turns it around by trying to get him to better understand Oliver, to forgive him. (She can’t resist; she always thought their friendship falling apart was an awful tragedy.)

Felicity, though, is slowly coming to a decision.

To hell with the timelines and integrity of the past.

She thinks Tommy Merlyn deserves to live, and she’s trying to figure out hot to make sure that happens.

* * *

[NOW I NEED TO KNOW IF SHE IS SUCCESSFUL](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/NOW-I-NEED-TO-KNOW-IF-SHE-IS-SUCCESSFUL)  [and if she is how much does that change her future?](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/and-if-she-is-how-much-does-that-change-her-future%3F)  [because Tommy’s death played such an important role in Oliver’s decision not to kill](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/because-Tommy%27s-death-played-such-an-important-role-in-Oliver%27s-decision-not-to-kill)  [and if Tommy isn’t dead](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/and-if-Tommy-isn%27t-dead)  [what is the impact on Oliver](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/what-is-the-impact-on-Oliver)  [not to mention what happens with the fallout of oh hey you sort of killed my dad](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/not-to-mention-what-happens-with-the-fallout-of-oh-hey-you-sort-of-killed-my-dad)  [i mean i know he was a terrorist trying to destroy a city](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-i-know-he-was-a-terrorist-trying-to-destroy-a-city)  [but you didn’t need to kill him](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/but-you-didn%27t-need-to-kill-him)  [my best friend is a murderer](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/my-best-friend-is-a-murderer)  [also](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/also)  [thanks for sleeping with my girlfriend](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/thanks-for-sleeping-with-my-girlfriend)  [glad to know you have no problems lying to me about your feelings either](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/glad-to-know-you-have-no-problems-lying-to-me-about-your-feelings-either)  [AND DAMN YOU ABBIE](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-DAMN-YOU-ABBIE)  [i need this](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/i-need-this)  [i need to see how Felicity being there](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/i-need-to-see-how-Felicity-being-there)  [knowing what happens](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/knowing-what-happens)  [knowing how all of this plays together in the future](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/knowing-how-all-of-this-plays-together-in-the-future)  [but trying so fucking hard to save this man](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/but-trying-so-fucking-hard-to-save-this-man)  [this guy she never really got to know before](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/this-guy-she-never-really-got-to-know-before)  [his loss didn’t really hurt her](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/his-loss-didn%27t-really-hurt-her)  [it hurt people she cares about](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/it-hurt-people-she-cares-about)  [but now](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/but-now)  [now it is hurting her](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/now-it-is-hurting-her)  [because she KNOWS him now](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/because-she-KNOWS-him-now)  [and she can change it](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/and-she-can-change-it)  [she can stop all of that pain](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/she-can-stop-all-of-that-pain)  [BUT AT WHAT COST](http://ohemgeeitscoley.tumblr.com/tagged/BUT-AT-WHAT-COST) ([ohemgeeitscoley](http://tmblr.co/mpB3Qhq81mrHSXfZ_h3XK4g))

* * *

 

SO FELICITY DECIDES TOMMY MERLYN GETS TO LIVE, ALRIGHT.

And for a few days, she tries to figure out how she can make that happen while not interfering anymore than necessary with the timeline.

But while she’s trying her best to leave as much as possible untouched in the story of their lives—except for that one, huge thing, and the fact that  _Tommy Merlyn is hiding her future self in his apartment_ —certain things still go down.

Thea narrowly escapes being made a legal example over drug use.

Tommy covers for Oliver at Verdant, but Oliver doubts Tommy’s integrity about not letting drugs into the club. TOMMY QUITS. And goes to work for his father.

The secret of Oliver’s extracurricular activities strains Tommy and Laurel’s relationship (as do Tommy’s insecurities) and  _also_  the secret that he’s keeping a girl at his apartment—a girl from the future.

And Felicity can see this all start to unravel exactly as it did before, and it’s  _killing_  her. Tommy’s friendship with Oliver is broken, his relationship with Laurel is clearly coming to and end (I really need to rewatch these episodes) and Felicity knows without a doubt:

Tommy Merlyn is  _running out of time_.

And she can do something about it.

Because they  _are_  friends now, and it just isn’t fair. Letting everything play out just like it always did for the sake of her future/past, letting Tommy  _die_ , just seems wrong.

So the next time he brings her a load of groceries (all grim and tired and shut down; his life is the opposite of what he wanted right now, Laurel slipping through his fingers, Oliver no longer his pillar, he’s a suit at Merlyn Global under his father’s thumb) Felicity drags him into the living room and asks to talk.

“Tommy,” she says, voice shaking and full of anxiety, fear, earnest desperation. “I need to tell you something. I need to  _change_  something _.”_

And he can tell, whatever this is, it’s huge, and scary. So he tries to laugh it off, telling her how she’s reminded him over and over that she can’t reveal information about the future, that risking changing major events could be dangerous.

“This is too important.” She shakes her head, voiced filled with tears that stand in her eyes when she meets his. “ _You_ are too important.”

So she tells him how he dies, and soon, and why.

She figures in for a penny, in for a pound, and tells him _everything_.

Everything. That Malcolm Merlyn plans to level the Glades, and that very soon, he will try, and Felicity and Oliver and Diggle will only half manage to stop him, and that Laurel will be threatened, but Tommy will save her, and die for it.

She tells him that right about now, Oliver is figuring out that Malcolm is the Dark Archer, that soon their team will break into Merlyn Global to steal the plans for the Markov device, that they’ll figure out he hid it in the subway. And that  _she_  will miss that he had a second device.

That it’s  _Felicity’s_  oversight that costs 503 lives—including Tommy’s.

Tommy cycles through a lot of things very rapidly. Denial, shock, anger. It takes weirdly less time than he’d imagine, to come to terms with his father being an  _honest to god monster_. Surprising Felciity, he processes the rest pretty quickly. That Laurel will be in danger. That because Team Arrow only knows of one device to stop, the other kills Tommy.

So he tells her “what if we get there first.”

And what happens is he breaks her into Merlyn Global, by walking her straight into the server room with his ID card.

She gets the plans while Tommy’s keeping watch, but when they’re almost caught by a security guard, he panics—pushes her against a server and stars sucking on her neck, hands on her hips.

The guard scowls and apologizes for interrupting Mr. Merlyn, but sternly tells him this is not the place to bring his “friend.”

Tommy grins all rakish, and says he’ll escort her out. Felicity is a little in shock, and giggles slightly hysterically, having to stop from shouting back to the guard about Tommy being her  _man_.

Team Arrow still breaks in and gets the blueprints via younger Felicity, and the conversation between Tommy and Oliver in Tommy’s office is even more awkward because of everything Tommy knows now.

When the time of the Undertaking actually comes, Felicity tries to convince him she can go into the tunnels and disarm the device by herself, because other-her and Detective Lance will have the other one taken care of.

Tommy throws a giant “fuck no” flag on that play.

He’s going with her. She tries to convince him that it’s stupid, that he’s hardly a trained fighter (and is horribly aghast when he reveals he “borrowed” one of his dad’s guns from the mansion, and yes, he does know how to shoot it; trips to the shooting range were about only kind of bonding activity Malcolm engaged Tommy in), that he should be with Laurel, try to keep her safe in case something goes wrong. (Even though the idea of him dying  _anyways_  in trying to keep Laurel safe in case she fails just about kills her.)

But Tommy insists that if they do this right, Laurel will never actually  _be_  in danger. That nobody has to die in the Glades today. And that his father might have men watching the device, so she needs backup, and he knows he’s not Oliver or Diggle, but he’s all she’s got.

And she swallows hard and gives in.

And it works. Dear god, it actually  _works_ , goes off practically without a hitch.

(Felicity has hacked the frequency of her team’s comms—and god it’s weird listening to  _herself_  talk to them, is that really what she sounds like?—and is monitoring the situation with them, which plays out almost exactly the same.)

Felicity locates and disarms the second Markov device while Tommy watches her back and, in their ears, past-Felicity walks Quentin through disarming the other.

It’s close, though. Mild tremors still happen.

Tommy and Felicity listen as Oliver and Malcolm fight, as Malcolm crows about having a redunancy, and past-Felicity freaks out—but then nothing happens.

Malcolm “dies” frustrated, thwarted. (Doesn’t die, of course, but Tommy, listening in, thinks he does; it’s awful and he;s angry and crying anyways, but he understands, god he understands. Felicity just stands very close and keeps a hand on his back.)

Intensely relieved, past-Felicity tells Oliver and Digg the other device must have been a dud. That they can expect mild tremors throughout the Glades to fade within the hour, and that damage should be at a minimum and mainly structural.

Mainly structural.

There’s irony in that, because the next tremor is a little bigger, and something in Verdant’s foundations gives a little, shakes loose.

The foundry partially collapses.

Felicity, who had just been murmuring to Tommy (their listening-comms go one way, they can’t be heard by the team) that he should go check on Laurel, make sure she’s okay, freezes with a strangled gasp, hands pressed to her face.

Because in all that rumbling and static and noise on the comms there was a shriek—past-Felicity’s—and an  _awful_ sound.

Oliver and Digg are shrieking on the comms. Tommy is staring at Felicity, both ghostly pale, shocked, deathly afraid.

They run back up to street level and get to Tommy’s car. Abandon it halfway to Verdant in the milling chaos to run the rest of the way, some of the time hand in hand to avoid losing each other in the madness. The comms went silent shortly after Tommy and Felicity hit the street, the equipment in the foundry probably damaged.

They don’t know what they’re walking into.

Tommy goes in first, when he sees Oliver’s motorcycle abandoned on its side in the alley adjoining the employee lot.

Felicity stays by the bike, terrified.

Tommy makes his way to the foundry, down the unstable stairs—and what he sees is Oliver, with Felicity in his lap.

Her chest looks wrong, and there’s a big chunk of the ceiling nearby; it looks like Oliver hauled her out from under it.

As Tommy comes to the bottom steps, he can’t make out what Felicity and Oliver are saying to each other—Felicity’s voice faint and sad and bubbling with blood in her lungs; Oliver’s strangled and sobbing as he rocks her.

As she dies.

When she’s clearly gone, Tommy is rooted in place, blasted inside, slowly dawning terror that if he goes upstairs, the alley will be empty. Because Felicity  _died_ , because her future self had to save his life.

So now Felicity  _has no future_.

Slowly, Oliver realizes he’s not alone, turns and sees Tommy. Asks what he’s doing there.

Tommy just stares at Felicity’s sightless eyes, lips the wrong shade of red, too wet, dripping down her chin. “This wasn’t what was supposed to happen,” is all he can say.

Oliver slowly lays Felicity down, stands, and moves brokenly over to Tommy, clearly going into shock. “This wasn’t your fault. It was your father’s.” His face twists, but he holds off the sob. “I had to kill him.”

Tommy isn’t even listening. “No, no,  _no_ , this isn’t right, Felicity wasn’t supposed to  _die instead of me_!”

Oliver starts looking at him like he’s losing it. But then there’s a footstep at the top of the stair—

In the alley, a minute or two after Tommy goes inside, Felicity doubles over as all of the air seems ripped out of her lungs. A strange, wrenching burning sensation swallows every single cell in her body, and it feels like everything that she is has just been  _yanked_  violently to one side.

When she finally gets her breath back, she has the most awful feeling of dread in her gut.

She goes inside. Goes to the foundry door, and through it. She starts down the stairs, her gaze moving quickly past shell-shocked Tommy (who hasn’t noticed her yet) and incredulous, hopeful, suspicious Oliver—to her own body, a little younger, cooling and broken on the floor.

She swallows thickly as she comes even with Tommy, who starts and looks at her like a ghost.

"You’re  _still here_.”

She nods, holding his eyes. They both ignore Oliver’s quiet “what the fuck.”

Felicity closes her eyes, can’t look at her own corpse even in fuzzy peripheral vision. “I think I just created an alternate universe.”

* * *

[andyouweremine](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/post/101050112928/absentlyabbie-absentlyabbie):

> Oh.
> 
> My.
> 
> God.
> 
> ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.
> 
> YOU ARE EVIL. WHY WOULD YOU HURT ME IN THIS WAY?
> 
> #[WHY](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/WHY) #[WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO MY EMOTIONS?](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/WHY-WOULD-YOU-DO-THIS-TO-MY-EMOTIONS%3F)#[SO THEN DOES FELICITY’S OLIVER NEVER EVER GET HER BACK?](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/SO-THEN-DOES-FELICITY%27S-OLIVER-NEVER-EVER-GET-HER-BACK%3F) #[IS THIS STOLEN!FELICITY STUCK IN THE UNIVERSE IN WHICH SHE DIED](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/IS-THIS-STOLEN%21FELICITY-STUCK-IN-THE-UNIVERSE-IN-WHICH-SHE-DIED) #[AND THIS OLIVER HAS HER AND TOMMY](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-THIS-OLIVER-HAS-HER-AND-TOMMY) #[BUT THE OTHER OLIVER](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/BUT-THE-OTHER-OLIVER) #[(HER OLIVER)](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/%28HER-OLIVER%29) #[LOSES BOTH OF THEM?](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/LOSES-BOTH-OF-THEM%3F) #[AND HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE REST OF WHAT FELICITY KNOWS?](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-HOW-DOES-THIS-AFFECT-THE-REST-OF-WHAT-FELICITY-KNOWS%3F) #[DOES SHE STOP MOIRA’S DEATH?](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/DOES-SHE-STOP-MOIRA%27S-DEATH%3F) #[SARA’S?](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/SARA%27S%3F) #[DOES THIS END WITH SMOAKING BILLIONARES](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/DOES-THIS-END-WITH-SMOAKING-BILLIONARES) #[OR WITH BOTH BOYS SAYING GOODBYE WHEN FELICITY FINALLY CATCHES UP TO HER OWN TIME](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/OR-WITH-BOTH-BOYS-SAYING-GOODBYE-WHEN-FELICITY-FINALLY-CATCHES-UP-TO-HER-OWN-TIME) #[AND FADES BACK INTO HER UNIVERSE?](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-FADES-BACK-INTO-HER-UNIVERSE%3F) #[I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/I-WANT-TO-KNOW-EVERYTHING)

* * *

#[help i am having intense feelings about so many things about this](http://silvainshadows.tumblr.com/tagged/help-i-am-having-intense-feelings-about-so-many-things-about-this)#[felicity and tommy ofc](http://silvainshadows.tumblr.com/tagged/felicity-and-tommy-ofc) #[and oliver & everything he’s been through](http://silvainshadows.tumblr.com/tagged/and-oliver-%26-everything-he%27s-been-through)#[but also intense feelings about EXCELLENT WRITING OF TIME TRAVEL MECHANICS & PARADOX ISSUES & ALTERNATE UNIVERSE CREATION AND AND AND](http://silvainshadows.tumblr.com/tagged/but-also-intense-feelings-about-EXCELLENT-WRITING-OF-TIME-TRAVEL-MECHANICS-%26-PARADOX-ISSUES-%26-ALTERNATE-UNIVERSE-CREATION-AND-AND-AND) #[guys help i am such a fucking time travel geek it’s absurd](http://silvainshadows.tumblr.com/tagged/guys-help-i-am-such-a-fucking-time-travel-geek-it%27s-absurd)  ([silvainshadows](http://silvainshadows.tumblr.com/tagged/but-also-intense-feelings-about-EXCELLENT-WRITING-OF-TIME-TRAVEL-MECHANICS-%26-PARADOX-ISSUES-%26-ALTERNATE-UNIVERSE-CREATION-AND-AND-AND))

[#oh my fucking god  ](http://sarcademia.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-my-fucking-god)[#i’ve been buried alive  ](http://sarcademia.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ve-been-buried-alive)[#i choose this universe over all other universes](http://sarcademia.tumblr.com/tagged/i-choose-this-universe-over-all-other-universes) ([sarcademia](http://tmblr.co/m03fHYPwLlgE32qaU1104mQ)) 

SO OBVIOUSLY OLIVER IS FUCKING REELING, RIGHT? The innocent young girl he brought in on his mission and promised Diggle they could protect was the one casualty in stopping the Undertaking, and she died in his arms.

 _Her body is still cooling behind him_.

But she’s standing in front of him, too, looking slightly older, with longer, straighter hair. She and Tommy are exchanging looks like they know something, and Oliver needs to know  _what the fuck is going on_ , right now.

They go upstairs.

No one can really handle standing around younger-Felicity’s body right now.

At about that time, Diggle arrives, limping and holding his shot shoulder. The comms were down, he doesn’t know what’s happening, so he doesn’t think much of it when Felicity goes into distraction mode and gets the extra emergency first-aid kit (not as stocked as the foundry’s med cart, but definitely more so than your typical business’s first aid kit) to see to his bleeding shoulder.

Oliver snatches the kit from her and growls at her to take a sate by the bar, and  _stay_  there, where he can see her. (Tommy’s getting worried, puts himself between Felicity and Oliver as Felicity shakily, for once, follows directions.)

Oliver and Diggle move to the end of the bar, and Oliver starts going through the kit, saying “That’s not Felicity, Diggle.”

Digg looks at him like he’s crazy. “What the hell are you talking about?”

"I mean, it  _is_  Felicity, actually,” Tommy interjects. “Just not…”

He trails off, not really sure where to begin, or  _how_ , with Oliver turning the murder glare on him.

Oliver gestures for Digg to take his shirt off so Oliver can clean and stitch the gunshot, but the move pulls his own arrow-through-the-shoulder wound and he winces.

Felicity, being Felicity, gets mad. “Oh for the love—neither of you idiots is in the shape to be patching up the other. Just let me  _help_.”

She’s up off her stool and past Tommy before he can grab her, and then she’s roughly snatching the kit from Oliver and hip-checking him away from John.

John’s bemused, because this damn sure seems like Felicity to him—but he is noticing something is weird about the way she looks, but maybe it’s the blood loss?

And Oliver is staring at her in consternation and loss and a sort of weird longing—it’s her, it’s  _her_ , but it’s not her, she just  _died in his arms this isn’t her_ —but sort of helplessly lets her start cutting away Digg’s sleeve and cleaning up the wound.

And then, glancing guiltily at Digg, then Oliver, then finally at Tommy, she starts to explain.

"I know this is going to sound completely crazy, but…”

She tells them all of it. She’s from almost two years ahead of this point in time. She’s not sure how it happened, hasn’t gotten any closer in the last odd number of weeks on how to get  _back_ —and now she’s not sure she  _can_ —and that in her timeline, tonight,  _Tommy died_.

And she couldn’t let it happen again.

So she changed it.

She explains how Tommy found her when she arrived, how he’s been harboring her this whole time—Oliver tries to give him this incredulous, betrayed look, but the look Tommy gives back is stony and challenging, because Oliver has  _no room to talk_ —and how she and Tommy stopped the second Markov device, because  _Felicity_ knew it was there.

“So the timeline you’re from,” Oliver croaks, thick and tight, “ _Tommy_  died. And you  _didn’t_?”

“ _What_?” Diggle roars, eyes popping wide.

Felicity flinches and cringes back, finished dressing his wound, and clutches her bloodied fingers together over her stomach. Unconsciously, she backs towards Tommy. “I didn’t know. I just knew that if we’d  _known_  about that damn second machine in time, Tommy would never have died, the East Glades wouldn’t fall on  _five hundred and three people_ , and that wouldn’t be my fault.” She looks up at Digg, at Oliver. “The first time, nothing like this happened to Verdant. Barely damaged. I was scared, and I had a hard time getting out later, but I was  _fine_. I didn’t know if I changed things, I’d _die_.” She shakes her head, swallows hard. “That  _she_  would die.”

"Where is she,” Diggle demands.

Oliver tells him. Diggle storms out to go see Felicity’s—younger Felicity’s—body.

Felicity is crying now, and doesn’t even feel Tommy’s hand, awkwardly attempting comfort, on her back.

“How are you still here?” Oliver asks, a little cold, arms over his chest. “If the younger you died,” he pauses, blinks rapidly, starts again, “then shouldn’t you just—stop being?”

Felicity sighs. “I’m hardly a physicist of any kind, but I guess time travel doesn’t work that way. I changed something big. This isn’t a different timeline anymore, it’s,” she frowns, shivering a she recalls that feeling of her entire  _existence_  being on fire and jerking to one side, “it’s a different universe now, I guess.”

She starts to ramble about the multiverse theory and points of divergence, but Oliver halts her with an exasperated, terse use of her name (over which he immediately stiffens.)

She sighs. “I don’t think I can go home anymore. Before I changed too much, it was just—future versus past, slipping from on part of the same timeline to another. Now it’s… it’s not my universe anymore.” Her chin trembles. “And I think I’m probably stuck here.”

Just then, Tommy’s phone rings.

It’s Laurel, trying to reach him, frantic to know he’s okay, has he heard about Moira? About his dad? Her dad says the police are looking for him, looking to question him. He needs to come into the station. Has he heard from Oliver? She can’t get him on his phone.

Tommy glances at Oliver, says he saw him, he’s okay. Says he’ll try and get to the station as soon as he can, but things are crazy out.

He has to leave, but doesn’t want to. Oliver keeps looking at Felicity like—hell, almost like he wants to kill her, even as he looks at her like she’s breaking his heart just by being. And Diggle definitely seemed… unhappy.

So he pulls Felicity aside, makes sure she has the burner cell he bought her a week or so ago, and leaves her the key to his apartment. Tells her to go back to his place tonight, no matter what.

Digg comes back upstairs, looking worn out and devastated. Just… weary. He looks at this Felicity like he just doesn’t know what to make of her, or how to feel about her.

“We’re going to need to something about—about the body,” he says, gruffly, and Oliver closes his eyes, looking sick.

Felicity doesn’t look much better.

“Where’s Merlyn?” Digg asks. Felicity explains.

Digg asks if there’s somewhere she can go. It’s obvious that he and Oliver want to  _not deal_  with her right now. She nods, but Diggle does at least offer to give her a ride.

Before she goes, she stops by Oliver, stops herself from puting her hand at his elbow just at the last second. Tells him to get ahold of Thea, that in her timeline, she’d been with Roy in the streets around this time. Oliver’s only answer is a sharp nod.

John drives Felicity to Tommy’s apartment, and is the most silent, awkward, awful car ride Felicity’s ever been on. Before she gets out, he tells her not to disappear. That he and Oliver will have questions. She just nods.

And then she goes upstairs and in Tommy’s living room, she thinks about how she’d hoped this night would go.

That Tommy would live, and so many lives would be  _so much better_ for it. That  _hundreds_  of people would live who hadn’t gotten to. And that then she could really focus on getting home, to  _her_  time, to her team, even if it was different now. (Or even if it wasn’t, and all she did was create a different timeline that diverged, she’d know that in one version of events, Tommy Merlyn and five hundred and two people  _survived_.)

Instead, while Tommy’s alive,  _she_  is dead, the younger Felicity is _dead_. She’s now trapped in a universe that isn’t hers, maybe forever. May never see any of the people who know and love her and share her memories ever again.

And Oliver and John seem to almost  _hate_  her.

So she sits on the couch, and when she closes her eyes, all she can see is her own face, open-eyed and pale, bloody-mouthed. Dead.

All she can do is cry.

* * *

 

[andyouweremine](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/post/101060724458/absentlyabbie-andyouweremine):

> #[WHY](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/WHY) #[YOU HAVE STILL NOT ANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OTHER OLIVER ABBIE](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/YOU-HAVE-STILL-NOT-ANSWERED-QUESTIONS-ABOUT-THE-OTHER-OLIVER-ABBIE) #[I NEED TO KNOW](http://andyouweremine.tumblr.com/tagged/I-NEED-TO-KNOW)

* * *

SO CURRENTLY I’M THINKING ORIGINAL RECIPE OLIVER IS FUCKING SHIT OUT OF LUCK BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY HIS IS THE UNIVERSE THAT FUCKING SUCKS, AND FELICITY IS STUCK IN THE AU OF HER OWN MAKING FOREVER.

AND THE REAL KICKER?

That means there’s still a living Felicity Smoak in this universe.

It’s a lot of thorny conversation, but what ends up happening is younger-Felicity gets buried at Queen manor (a funeral is held by Digg and Oliver, and Felicity is actually not invited; they kind of resent her right now—Tommy, oddly enough, is allowed to come. Per Felicity’s request, he has them all three give younger-Felicity proper Jewish burial rites.)

And then even though right now, Digg and Oliver resent and mistrust Felicity, they let her slip into her younger self’s life. She moves out of Tommy’s apartment, and into her own townhome. She goes to her job in IT.

Felicity, Tommy, and Digg have  _several_  conversations about the differences in the timelines immediately following the Undertaking. Felicity gets angry enough to tell Oliver how he left, after Tommy’s funeral, and how many ways that was bullshit, and that if he even tries this time he will be on the no fly list faster than a sneeze.

Moira’s still in jail, but it’s going to be a very different trial now that there aren’t casualties in the hundreds and she televised a warning before the even was supposed to go down.

Felicity warns Oliver against Isabel Rochev coming after QC (though she’s still hedging about Slade, not sure yet how much to reveal how quickly.)

She pulls Tommy and Oliver aside and tells them about Thea’s parentage, how in her timeline she figured it out. And then she encourages them bot to  _tell Thea_ , that in her timeline, when Thea found out from someone else and realized it had been  _kept from her_ , it had gone very, very badly.

She warns Oliver about Roy and his intrepid determination to follow in Oliver’s footsteps. Tells Oliver that, to honor Tommy, he chose a nonlethal method of vigilantism (chooses to tell him this while Tommy is present, and the look Tommy gives him when she says that… Oliver looks very, very contemplative.)

Tells Oliver he stopped wanting to be called the Hood.

Wanted to be known as the Arrow.

There are things she knows better than to interfere with, though.

So she doesn’t tell John that his relationship with Carly is doomed, because Floyd Lawton will come between them. She doesn’t tell John he’s going to reignite things with his ex-wife. Or that they’ll have a baby. (All of that could change now, anyways.)

She does, eventually, tell Oliver that Sara’s alive. (When Sara starts showing up, mysterious woman in black leather, busting misogynist heads.)

Felicity’s new policy is going to be the beauty of hindsight paid forward. No lies and awful secrets told to the people who most matter. (She even encourages Oliver and Tommy to think  _really hard_  about maybe reading Laurel in.)

But not everything’s lovely.

Oliver alternately falls into the groove of treating her the same as before (which is jarring to Felicity, because it’s  _not_  the same as what she’s accustomed to anymore) and treating her with cool suspicion and a little resentment. (Because she’s not the right Felicity. It’s her fault that  _that_  Felicity is gone. He has a hard time reconciling it.)

John forgives a little easier. But it kills Felicity, a little bit, because things aren’t the same between her and Digg anymore, either.

She misses him and Oliver both terribly, but they’re  _right there_.

All she can do is try to resolve herself to being present with this version of her boys. (She’s looking so forward to Sara being there. She misses Sara fiercely, and feels like she above all of them would have the most empathy for the position Felicity’s in now.)

And Tommy is a godsend. He’s the only one she’s not rewriting a relationship template with, because she never got the opportunity to be his friend before. And that freshness (and those weeks where she was a secret fish out of water) have helped bind them.

She spends a lot of time with him, talking to him as he struggles trying to figure out with Laurel where they stand with each other now (and where he and Oliver stand now, too.) It’s just… a slow-building, really nice friendship, and a solace for them both in this time.

She does slowly settle in. It’s awkward and rocky, and so  _incredibly_  different (the summer of 2013 felt a lot shorter to her the first time around), and her heart still holds a constant ache for  _her team_ , her family, left behind, that she may never get back.

But she’s trying to carve out a life in this one, for as long as it’s hers.

[#and she does by the way totally badger oliver to quickly beg walter to step back in as ceo of qc before the bank snatches him up](https://tumblr.com/tagged/and-she-does-by-the-way-totally-badger-oliver-to-quickly-beg-walter-to-step-back-in-as-ceo-of-qc-before-the-bank-snatches-him-up) [#she tells him ‘because no offense but you CANNOT take ceo](https://tumblr.com/tagged/she-tells-him-%27because-no-offense-but-you-CANNOT-take-ceo) [#you’re terrible at it and i’m not going to let you strongarm me into being your executive assistant a second time’](https://tumblr.com/tagged/you%27re-terrible-at-it-and-i%27m-not-going-to-let-you-strongarm-me-into-being-your-executive-assistant-a-second-time%27) [#so when isabel comes circling qc isn’t the limping prey it might have been](https://tumblr.com/tagged/so-when-isabel-comes-circling-qc-isn%27t-the-limping-prey-it-might-have-been) [#(and tommy’s busy liquidating the fuck out of merlyn glocal—everything that isn’t being seized by the government anyways)](https://tumblr.com/tagged/%28and-tommy%27s-busy-liquidating-the-fuck-out-of-merlyn-glocal--everything-that-isn%27t-being-seized-by-the-government-anyways%29) [#and laurel stays with cnri a little longer](https://tumblr.com/tagged/and-laurel-stays-with-cnri-a-little-longer) [#but when joanna gets a job at a high-powered firm her boss tells her she’s looking for someone](https://tumblr.com/tagged/but-when-joanna-gets-a-job-at-a-high-powered-firm-her-boss-tells-her-she%27s-looking-for-someone) [#to be their major pro bono lawyer (it’s great pr after all especially in this city these days)](https://tumblr.com/tagged/to-be-their-major-pro-bono-lawyer-%28it%27s-great-pr-after-all-especially-in-this-city-these-days%29) [#and joanna calls laurel](https://tumblr.com/tagged/and-joanna-calls-laurel) [#and laurel does that for a while and is AMAZING at it](https://tumblr.com/tagged/and-laurel-does-that-for-a-while-and-is-AMAZING-at-it) [#she’s helping people but with greater resources (and greater paycheck)](https://tumblr.com/tagged/she%27s-helping-people-but-with-greater-resources-%28and-greater-paycheck%29) [#and eventually she’ll get courted by the da’s office](https://tumblr.com/tagged/and-eventually-she%27ll-get-courted-by-the-da%27s-office) [#and it’ll be such a better story for her](https://tumblr.com/tagged/and-it%27ll-be-such-a-better-story-for-her) [#ugh](https://tumblr.com/tagged/ugh) [#just](https://tumblr.com/tagged/just) [#minus the felicity dying and being replaced by her future self snag](https://tumblr.com/tagged/minus-the-felicity-dying-and-being-replaced-by-her-future-self-snag) [#this is the happy ending everybody should get](https://tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-the-happy-ending-everybody-should-get)

 


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